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Marketing, retail.

The case study is specific to the marketing demographics of Indian shoppers with respect to organized retail stores, and therefore, the inter-relationships between various design elements and the relative importance of certain parameters discussed in the text may not follow the same pattern elsewhere in the world.

The case emulates the real-life situation of an organized retail store, Super Mart, to understand the inculcation of voice of the customer in the design of organized retail stores in India. It gives insights about factors which influence the shopping intent of customers while giving information about the inter-relationships among various design characteristics. It also gives an idea about inter-dependence between design characteristics and customer requirements. This is followed by certain questions, the responses to which can be interpreted from the text and the data provided therein.

The case aims to educate its audience about the following aspects of organized retail business: factors influencing offline shopping intent of customers; relative order of importance of customer requirements with respect to organized retail stores; inter-relationships between various design elements; and future trends in the organized retail space. Such a knowledge would help hone the skills of the next generation of business leaders in the retail space.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Marketing management and marketing strategy, rural marketing, sales and distribution.

Students of business schools specialising in the area of marketing or rural marketing.

The case focuses on the rural market. It deals with the alternative distribution channels adopted for last mile distribution among rural consumers of underdeveloped Odisha (India). The case discusses key issues pertaining to rural marketing, business viability, social issues and public sentiment.Easy access is an entrepreneurial venture by an erstwhile intellectual marketing professor of a premier B-school. The objective behind this initiative is multiple, viz., rural marketing, developing alternative distribution networks, women empowerment, etc. The case highlights that the business of Easy Access started with noble social objectives like women empowerment and developing a cost effective distribution network so that rural customers would be benefited. The case also highlights that the practices adopted by Easy access was not good enough to track & forecast demand effectively as well as the supply chain to replenish stock was not proper.Since the particular market is a backward region and there are number of Govt. schemes and people are given many things for free. People thought Easy Access is result of one of such schemes. Also there were social issues of improper address and mismatch identity (as mentioned in the case) etc.So the issues of demand forecasting and supply chain management along with social issues resulted in financial loss and thus the viability of business venture (Easy Access) is a concern. The social objectives associated with this venture are also at stake or at danger because of financial loss.

The case provides insights into the marketing concepts like rural marketing, marketing strategy in emerging markets and sales and distribution.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

E-commerce.

The case study is specific to the marketing demographics of online Indian shoppers and therefore, the inter-relationship between certain customer requirements and design elements and the relative importance of items in the latter may not follow the same pattern elsewhere.

At a time when e-commerce is booming in India and when online retailers are posting multifold year-on-year growth, it becomes increasingly important to identify the factors pertaining to online stores which can influence the buying behavior of consumers. This case aims to explore such factors relevant to businesses as well as consumers so as to enable the next generation of leaders in online retail business to gain maximally. It deals with critical design characteristics of online retail stores in India which can prove crucial to their success. These characteristics are manifestations of various customer requirements. Two surveys are conducted to establish a hierarchy of design elements and quantify the inter-relationships between customer requirements and design characteristics. This is followed by leads as to which factors may or may not have contributed toward the declining sales volume of an e-commerce start-up, namely, E-Bazaar.

The learning objectives of the case include: the study of design characteristics with respect to their relative importance; the analysis of the degree of relationships between the design characteristics and customer requirements; and the interpretation of real-life signs in taking strategic business decisions in the field of e-commerce. The case aims to prepare a new breed of leaders in the e-commerce sector with a good level of relevant business acumen to help them make informed strategic choices.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

Choice Behavior.

The case study deals with cross-gender analysis of impulse buying behavior in apparel shopping in India. Any extrapolation of this study to other markets should take into account that Indian consumers are price sensitive. The buying behavior in apparel shopping may not be directly related to other retail categories such as ready-to-eat food, consumer electronics, etc.

Mr Khuswant Chaddha’s family business is in tatters. Market dynamics have changed over the years and his textile mill is no longer the cash cow it once was. His son, Gaurav Chaddha, a recent engineering graduate, plans to save the business by venturing into branded apparel retailing. A key component of this strategy is to figure out impulse shopping behavior in apparel purchases. The gender angle is used to better comprehend the differences in impulse buying emotions so that males and females can be targeted with greater success. A survey of shoppers belonging to suitable demographics is used as the backbone of this study. The analysis of the data presents several dilemmas in some critical business decisions.

The objectives of the case include: understanding how marketplaces change over time; realizing the fact that businesses should evolve over time and even highly profitable business models can become obsolete pretty fast; studying the factors which influence the choice of an apparel store; understanding impulse buying behavior and how gender plays a decisive role in it and analyzing post purchase behavior with respect to gender.

Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 8: Marketing.

We study the role of school climate, and teacher task, and citizenship performance in mediating the effects of principal instructional leadership behavior on student achievement.

Structural equation modeling was applied to data obtained from 302 Indian secondary schools to test a mediated-effects model.

School climate was examined under two broad dimensions, the social and affective and the physical environment. Results of mediation analysis showed that the benefits of principal instructional leadership for student achievement are operationalized as an indirect effect. This indirect effect is realized primarily through the physical environment, and the in-role task performance of teachers. No significant contribution to the indirect effect through the social and affective environment was found. The latter, nonetheless, fully mediated the relationship between the instructional leadership and extra-role or citizenship behavior of teachers. These findings underscore the different and distinct mediating roles played by the social and affective, and physical dimensions of the school climate in our model.

To the best of our knowledge, the reported associations between principal instructional leadership, school climate and student achievement that take into account both the in-role and extra-role job performance of teachers within the purview of a single framework are new. Also, this is the first study exploring these relations in an Indian context.

Recent statistics concerning webrooming shoppers is indicative of the trending webrooming phenomenon, and points toward the dire need for the addressal of the issue. The purpose of this paper is to reason the consumer’s intentional visit to an online store prior to making purchases offline by linking it with perceived channel benefits and uncertainty reduction approach through an application of the theory of planned behavior.

A survey instrument was administered online, and a total of 374 responses were obtained. Respondents were queried with respect to the webrooming sequence, if at all they were into webrooming. The PLS-SEM was used to test the formulated hypotheses.

The factor “Access to reviews online” emerged as the prime perceived search benefit which drives consumers’ to first visit an online store, while factors like “access to touch and feel the product,” “better post-purchase services offline” and “immediate possession of product” induced customers to later purchase offline. Factors like “E-distrust” and “perceived risks related to purchasing online” notably determined consumer’s movement to the physical store for purchasing the product in the second phase of the webrooming sequence.

A small sample size limits the authors from drawing definitive generalizations. Due to the lack of studies, individually examining webrooming conduct, a prior qualitative exploration can be conducted to draw more insights.

The findings of the study can be utilized by the online retailers for devising strategies to push the webroomers to make purchases online.

The study creates awareness as to what motivates consumers to webroom, which has been realized as one of the serious issues being faced by the online retailers today.

This study addresses a key concern “webrooming phenomenon,” which has emerged as a critical challenge in the present retailing dynamics.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the various perceived risk facets such as financial risk, performance risk, psychological risk, social risk, and physical risk influence the Indian consumers’ perceived overall risk during the purchase of green products such as energy-efficient LED light bulbs.

A self-administered questionnaire comprising a total of 29 items was employed over a sample of 272 respondents. The structural equation modeling using partial least squares was used for data analysis.

Psychological risk emerged as the most influential of the various risk facets in affecting perceived overall risk. Financial, physical, and performance risks emerged as the second, third, and fourth most influential risk facets, respectively, which affect the perceived overall risk. Surprisingly, social risk did not emerge as an influential facet when it comes to affecting perceived overall risk. Further, psychological and financial risks appeared to have a positive medium-level influence on the perceived overall risk, whereas physical and performance risks appeared to have a positive weak influence on the perceived overall risks. The influence of financial risk on the perceived overall risk was found to be partially mediated by performance risk.

The study is unique in the sense that it reflects the risk perception of potential consumers in one of the largest emerging markets of the world, when it comes to purchase of green products.

Recent multichannel research suggests that consumers use multiple channels to reap attribute-based benefits which have led to showrooming phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons for consumers’ showrooming behaviour and propose a comprehensive model based on application and extension of the “Theory of planned behaviour”.

Using the probability sampling approach, 278 complete responses were obtained via web-based surveys for analysing the showrooming behaviour. The research model was tested using the “Partial least squares method” which follows a variance-based structural equation modelling approach.

The results of the study indicate that “touching and feeling the product” and “sales staff assistance” motivated customers to visit the physical store before buying online. “Better online service quality” and “lower prices online” induced customers to later purchase online. Price conscious customers and those with the ability to use multiple channels were more likely to engage in showrooming behaviour.

The generalization of the findings may be limited because the data were collected from a small sample size. The subject calls for more extensive research for drawing generalizations due to lack of the substantive literature on the core area of study.

The model proposed will help retailers in understanding the showrooming phenomenon which recent researchers have considered as a threat to retail. The study provides basis for devising strategies to defend showrooming customers.

This paper adds to the body of knowledge in retailing by proposing a model on showrooming which is an emerging area of research in the present retail landscape.

This study aims to obtain an understanding of the impact of personal cultural orientation on potential consumers’ intention toward the purchase of high-involvement green products, specifically, electric two-wheelers in India, which is one of the largest emerging markets of the world.

A self-administered questionnaire comprising a total of 30 items was administered over a sample of 582 respondents. The structural equation modeling using partial least square was used to analyze the relative impact of different cultural dimensions on consumers’ green purchase intention. Geert Hofstede’s typology of culture was used to represent personal cultural orientation and four of the five dimensions, namely, collectivism, long-term orientation (LTO), masculinity and uncertainty avoidance were studied.

Findings of the study revealed that collectivism, LTO and masculinity appear to be significant cultural dimensions that influence Indian consumers’ intention to purchase electric two-wheelers. Collectivism is the most influential dimension, followed by LTO and masculinity.

This study helps in expanding literature in the area of green purchase by providing insight on how consumers’ individual cultural orientation influences their purchase of eco-friendly products such as electric two-wheelers.

The findings of the study offer insights, which can be useful for marketers in developing various promotional strategies, as consumers’ cultural values have significant implications for decisions with respect to the advertisement content.

This study illustrates the relative impact of different dimensions of national culture (measured at consumers’ personal level) on consumers’ green purchase intention. Such a study appears to be important in extending current knowledge on green purchase behavior in one of the largest emerging markets such as India.